Here is my previous litany from 2018, Year B, Proper 7: Litany for the Desperate
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how we are remembering. Re-membering. Putting the body of knowledge back together again. Becoming conscious members once again of a Community. We forget that we are part of the body of God. We forget that our true selves are “hidden with Christ in God.” And that DOESN’T MEAN that our true selves are hidden from us or inaccessible to us. It means we are enfolded in God, God being all around everywhere available. Waiting to be remembered.
(I’m using words to try to express a fairly profound spiritual truth, which is always tricky business.)
My point is: I’m thinking (and learning from many spiritual teachers) that it is our work here to re-member ourselves as parts of Christ/God on earth. And then to live out that essential truth in our thoughts, words, and actions.
And then Saint Paul speaks so beautifully about the paradoxes we are muddling through here on earth, and how we are learning to recognize our true selves among all this contrast. He says: “Our hearts are wide open.” Which I take as a shorthand way of expressing that our hearts are mirroring God’s heart as part of God’s heart. We assume the wide-open-hearted posture of God toward all beings, toward ourselves, toward each other. When we can do this, we’ve come home to our true nature and the world will reverberate with our home-coming.
God, we are here in this realm of contrast, relativity, and duality,
Learning to recognize ourselves -
You in us, us in you.
You flung open your heart to us!